


Boxes of Chaos

by InfinityIllusion



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Chaos, F/M, Gen, but doesn't know how to get that, mostly Adrien is a sad kid and needs hugs, so he hides, so this came out different from what I planned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: Adrien would have thought his life would get better upon finishing a year at a public school, interacting with peers, having friends.  He just forgot to account for a few things, including his father's high standards, the fact people actually need to sleep to function, and that he's a superhero.On the plus side, he exhibits impressive time-management skills.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, written while tired, please try back tomorrow for edits (um. If I remember/my roommate decides to be my beta after I publish it :))
> 
> Um. So. I don't own it, I won't own it, it's mostly I had feels for ML and this is what came out and darn it I now have a different idea.
> 
> (spj you're not allowed to kill me I don't care if you're in the same time zone as me or not. I have a text that says you asked for it. Well, sorta.)
> 
> 9/25/16: a few small edits made

* * *

It’s been a year. 

Adrien knows that he can trust his partner.  He knows that she’s self-sacrificing, but she tries not to be an idiot about it because he’ll be there to take the hit for her.  There have been too many close calls by now for them to mess around (because mind control is never something to joke about, not in their situation, even when they do, and they haven’t wanted to test just how much the ‘cleansing light’ actually restores.  Even if Adrien knows they should, for scientific reasons – for safety reasons – for public relations). 

But they do.

They are teenagers – Adrien knows that Ladybug is still in school, as she mentions an algebra assignment that’s giving her issues after one particularly long chase, and they commiserate over crazy schedules and friends and drama and gossip and cliques and the workload from school.

He gives her ideas on how to solve some of the equations, and she spends some time waxing poetic about the same book he’s reading for French Lit.  It’s soothing…in the same way it is to spend time with Nino, just sitting in the other’s presence, and lacking the expectations present in every other portion of his life.

(Adrien has nearly perfect grades, but he works for them in the long hours that fill time in between photo sessions, rattling off facts as people dress him, apply make-up, tweak his outfit.  When the camera’s card gets changed, when a bulb burns out and he doesn’t have to focus on his body in ways that make him, in the back of his mind, wish for nightfall (or even worse an Akuma attack because flipping through the air is so much easier than holding the same pose for hours).

It beats having to work with other models who act like his mother, his friend, his girlfriend, because those stations in his life are filled, and while he wouldn’t deny another person friendship or at least politeness, he cannot be who he is beneath flashing bulbs, which bear his flaws to his father, even when the man only observes from behind a computer screen, weeks after the fact.)

Adrien has been blessed with good looks, and a comfortable lifestyle.  He knows there are people in his class that are jealous of what he can buy (if his father approves) and it aches, like a duller version of the longing he feels for his mother, that he will never be one of them.

He buys Nino a laptop solely for his music.

(Wide eyes behind glasses, a quiet “thanks” that’s awe, and appreciation, and some small sliver of resentment because Nino’s parents are well off, but they’re not going to buy him another computer _just for music_ , with applications preinstalled, and Adrien _can and has_ and it burns in Adrien’s chest that there’s nothing he can do about that spark, but be the best friend he can be.

Which is to say, Adrien has no idea how to act, and accepts that he is Nino’s friend, but not, never, his best friend, because what friend is he that makes the other _jealous_?

Not one.  At least, not one that Adrien can be proud to be.  So he accepts that he isn’t and strives to become one, while knowing that his goal is unachievable, but that is something he’s grown used to.

(He doesn’t see the guilt on Nino’s face, when Adrien’s expression falters slightly upon seeing his look at receiving the computer, and how Nino is more affectionate than ever in the days following that event.))

He tried to make friends with Alya, who is Nino’s friend, turned girlfriend after they were stuck in a cage at the Zoo during one Akuma attack or another, and now it seems like meeting with one is the same as meeting with both.

Alya is a good friend, when she’s not being controlled by Papillion.

She’s bright, and enthusiastic about everything she speaks or hears about, and is still able to calm down and listen…most of the time.  Alya listens to Nino’s playlists, and mixes, and comes back with reviews and comments on what he could tweak and what she liked and Adrien feels small, sitting in the booth, at the café table, walking alongside them on the sidewalk because he’s had a photoshoot every day this week and there have been at least 16 Akuma attacks, of which the news has only really covered seven and he wants to sleep for a week, or a minimum of four hours.  But the email Nino sent last Saturday, the USB drive slipped into his backpack with a sticky note and a smile on Monday, that Adrien has been meaning to plug into his laptop or desktop to download and those same playlists and mixes from is burning a hole in his backpack, his phone, his head.

He’s a horrible friend, if being a friend is only half of what Alya does, Adrien fails, utterly.  He forces himself to stay awake, to download those songs and listen and try to understand, but music was never his forte, for all that he plays an instrument.  So he marks down what he likes, and sends it off to Nino before collapsing in bed and rising a scant hour later to defeat some disgruntled night guard.

Nino’s smile is worth the bruises he received from not being quite as quick on his feet in the fight, those same bruises removed by Ladybug’s cleansing power and all that’s left is a bone deep tiredness that threatens his soul.  But having a friend is worth it, worth the complaints about bags under his eyes and the increasing paleness of his skin, which causes the make-up artists to tut as they rush about for a lighter shade of concealer and foundation, cause those other model’s with whom he has something of a friendship, for all their years between them, to worry and ask him if he needs help with memorizing the facts for this week’s exams or bounce ideas around for the papers due in the near future (Adrien can’t quite remember the current date).

He says, “I’m fine, I’ve just been busy,” launching into a story of school and Chloe’s escapades, which make the models laugh and roll their eyes in turn, along with the make-up artists and dressers, on the rare occasions they’re not rushing with a clothing change.

Yet, Marinette is in a similar situation.  Probably.

She still doesn’t say anything to him, but now it’s less squeaking and then running off on whatever tangent is slightly related to whatever question he asked, only to duck away and hide, and more like she can’t seem to keep her eyes open and it’s only through the power of caffeine and sugar that she’s even barely functional at all.

And then she pulls out amazing creations for the different fashion competitions at school, or for Alya’s birthday, and then Christmas (and he receives a pair of delicate, knit black gloves, lined with red fur and ladybug pompoms because she’d “heard Nino mention that Adrien was a hug fan of Ladybug”), and Nino’s birthday, and even Sabrina’s, too.

She’s skating by with passing grades and there are bets every class on which one of them is going to fall asleep first (something the teachers seem to, generally, not notice, so long as they respond upon when called and pass the tests and Adrien is so, _so_ grateful because his old tutors would have eviscerated him by now).

There’s some kind of kinship between them now, forged by getting caught being asleep by the strictest teachers, when not even their friends poking them in the ribs will catch their attention, but it’s one of silences and short-termed relief at the end of one class, only to be struck down by the beginning of another, until the end of the day and even that’s not the relief it should be.

(Adrien wonders why Marinette is so tired, but if Alya can’t get the reason from her, Adrien would never be able to, so he gives up before he starts and buys two cups of coffee in the morning, passing one to her, and she trades him with espresso pastries between classes in a vain attempt to ensure they both stay awake for a full lesson.

It helps, for the first 20 minutes or so, but they’re both fighting their eyelids by the second half of class and then it’s a race to see who drops off first.)

Adrien’s schedule consists of a few hours of sleep, school (or a photo shoot), a photo shoot and homework and studying, or fencing and homework and studying and _then_ the photo shoot, returning home (and studying in the car), showering, studying, sleeping, and in between he sneaks slivers of time with his friends, and downloads Nino’s songs, and checks the Ladyblog, and wonders what sort of fashion miracle Marinette will work for Nathanael’s birthday.

(He has a bet on a bag for the other boy’s art supplies.)

There are no breaks in his life, save when he leaps from windows and defies gravity to save Paris and this wonderful partner of his that he might be in love with because _who doesn’t love Ladybug_ and this is how the chaos that is his life becomes ordered and squared and perfected because Adrien is a model, he is an actor, and has since he first had his picture taken for a magazine.

His time as a being of chaos and bad luck are neatly inserted between _math_ and _history_ and _the first half of the photo shoot_ and _sleeping_ and _napping_ and since never has Chaos been this Orderly.

Chat Noir uses Cataclysm to annihilate matter and Adrien uses the facts he’s assimilated in small increments of time around photo shoots and fencing to obliterate the multiple choice test set in front of him at the end of the school year and awkwardly commiserates with Nino on how _hard_ the test was because he’s not sure how much he’s allowed to complain about it, since he finished first and is quite certain he managed at least a 98%.

Adrien, who after his mother died, never really left his room, except as his father directed him, boxes himself up behind photo shoots and fencing and Chinese and school work and smiles at Nino and Alya and Marinette, because that’s what he _knows_ how to do.  All the while, Chat Noir smiles and puns and flips through the air and if there’s an edge to him, it’s because he’s a cat and a black one at that.  He’s bad luck, and chaos, and destruction, and while he aims those powers at the world, there are blades hidden that have only ever found one mark, which beats in the chest of a boy with blond hair and green eyes, which beats for a girl with pigtails and sass and a smile with dimples, who will never, ever look at Chaos and embrace him because she is Creation, and he knows that the type of Chaos he is: made of rot, disintegration, destruction.

* * *

Comments always welcome!

Also, I know I need to get back to people...I'm working on it.  Also on the other fics that I need to write (*looks at fic that hasn't been updated for a year*)...yeah....

Anyways, school has started, so we'll see what I come up with when I'm supposed to be paying attention in class!

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